The rationale
While I'm a "I just hope that both teams have fun", kind of sports fan, there is no denying the power of competition to spike interest and to drive investment in learning. I remember my own experience in the classroom-
Geography? Hard pass.
Geography elimination games where we had to name a country that started with the last letter of the country that was just named? Let's go.
Math drills? Absolutely not.
Math drills in the form of snowball fights where the questions were written on crumpled up paper and tossed around the room? Don't mind if I do.
So I thought, how can we apply this to social emotional learning? The basketball bracket competition for coping strategies, or, the Calm Down Showdown.
Basketball Bracket Competition for Coping Skills
How it works
First, choose 16 coping techniques from the pre-made 24 options. This could include sloth breaths, rainbow breaths, imagine a vacation, yoga, glitter jar, dance party, etc. You will need to cut out the bulletin board letters, basketball accents, brackets, the trophy and those 16 strategy bubbles.
Next, plan out your competition and pit two grounding techniques against each other at a time. Display them on the screen via your editable Powerpoint, and organize a timed exploration of these two coping skills.
After each day or period, your students or counseling groups will vote on their favorite coping strategy. You can print ballots for each student, or save paper by having them put their heads down and raising their hands to vote, and recording it on one ballot per group.
After tallying the results, progressively move each skill towards the middle, until a champion is crowned! You will have to print extra bubbles of the most popular coping strategy to fill in your brackets.
Once a winner is crowned, don't forget to have a dramatic reveal and celebrate!
Extensions
You may even want to plan a themed party to take this to a whole new level. For example, if Imagine a Vacation wins, you could have a themed beach day, if Rainbow Breaths win, you might want to have a rainbow spirit day, or if slime wins, you might want to host a slime-making event!
What is your go-to coping strategy?
Let me know in the comments below!
